The Were Woof cub cries out for shoes...I am Death, destroyer of worlds...

We were out shopping and we walked past a group of people wearing red sweaters and waving placards. They were shouting their support for candidate somebody or other, I think they may all have been wearing white pants too. Izzy tugged on my leg and asked;
"Are those the people who fight cavities?"


The Were Woof was a terrible, snarling, sleep deprived beast that is (for the time being) gone. However, his legacy lives on in the cub he helped to create. Ah yes my friends our little Izzy is going through something just now that can only be described as supernatural. There is all the snarling and yelling and cursing that we have come to expect and love from Izzy but now there is a new wrinkle. The cub cries...at length...for no apparent reason.
"Izzy, clean up your mess in the living room." I said one day.
"Waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllll" she wailed. I'm not kidding she went to full on, falling apart sobbing in the blink of an eye. You'd have thought I had asked her to eat a cat turd served on a bit of broken glass. It has turned into a test of wills and for now, the Were Woof can still out wit the cub but how long will it last...
A little while ago, Mrs. Narrator bought Isobel a par of black shoes which although cute and agreeable to the cub, we nevertheless too small. The sobs that went up from her were by far the worst (and biggest and fakest and most drama filled) we had heard yet. I had gotten so bad we told her that if she couldn't get a handle on the crying, she would have to go do it in her room because none of us could hear the television...which of course only brought on bigger, more outrageously fake tears.
"Just ignore her." Mrs. Narrator said
"What?" I said cupping a hand to my ear.
The kids knew that when the Were Woof was me, if I was shouting it was because I was tired and just blowing off steam but they also knew that if I got quiet and spoke in measured tones, I had reached the end of my rope and they shouldn't go any further. It clearly had an effect on Izzy as she leaned in one day and said, almost in a whisper.
"Daddy, I want you to get me black shoes an I want you to get them...right...now." She had a look in her eye that told me she was saying this with all sincerity and I tried very hard to keep a straight face.
"Honey, I'm not even sure where Mummy got those shoes let alone what size your feet even are."
"...Right...now..." she replied.
It went on like that for a couple of days with me and whenever Mrs. Narrator would come through the door, home from work she would be greeted with,
"Mummy did you get my black shoes yet?"
"No Izzy, I work in an office not a shoe store."
Aaarrrghhh...." the Were Woof cub would growl.
Finally a pair of black shoes came through the front door and the savage beast was soothed. She tried them on and walked around the house almost until bed time. And now they sit near the door amid a pile of almost unworn shoes... there must have been silver bullets in the soles...





In the fall, as the weather begins to cool we are often besieged with Box Elder Bugs. The don't do anything particularly harmful but they have a fairly high creep factor. The look kind of like a red and black cockroach. This year has been especially bad. The antidote for these things is dish soap and water in a spray bottle and have at them. It is like pouring acid on them. I don't quite understand it but Izzy and I love to go out and spray them down. Saying particularly potent and evil sounding things as we spray soak them.
"From Hell's heart I stab at thee..."(foosh goes the spray bottle) I say.
Or "I am Death, destroyer of worlds..."(foosh)
"You damn bugs suck and I HATE you..."(foosh) says Izzy. Not nearly as dramatic but she hasn't devoted as much time to the classics as she has to the Grinch. Her heart is in the right place and full of Box Elder hating venom.
When the days are sunny, the bugs will warm themselves on the door of the garage and try to fly away as we spray them. This tends to up the creep factor and even I have been covered with them and gotten completely skeeved out by it. Izzy took it in stride when they were on her and sort of just brushed them off. But she let out an odd noise and I thought one had gotten in her hair or ear or something but her look said it was worse...much worse.
Daddy, I need to go in, I need to go in!"
We went inside and I finally got her to tell me that she though a Box Elder was in her underpants. Trying hard to be the brave father and not the totally creeped out, just removed all the bugs from me and my daughter but still feeling oogy, Dad that I currently was, I took her into the bathroom and asked her to "drop 'em". Nothing there...thankfully. She was a little sweaty and I'm guessing some sweat had started to run down there and with the bugs flying around and crawling all around...hey it could happen to anyone. I had to let out a small (kinda grossed out anyway) chuckle after Izzy went to bed and I was getting ready for a shower, when what should I find in my underpants but a dead Box Elder Bug...